‘Chewing gum’ books

It’s amazing how books can take you into conversations you might never had otherwise have had. On the train to work a man opposite me asked me whether or not Ulysses was as difficult as some people said it was. I told him it was and after chatting about Greene and his love for 100 Years of Solitude he said he was reading a fantasy book about dragons and described it in a way I had never heard before: “It’s light reading, chewing gum really”. I knew what he meant without knowing it and it really stuck in my mind as describing a type of book. Can’t see the bookshops starting a chewing gum category but who knows…?